Rome restores towering colonnade of Trajan's Basilica

Rome's most majestic forum has recovered some of its former glory with a partial reconstruction of the imposing columns of Trajan's basilica, using funds from a now-sanctioned Russian oligarch.

The restoration of a portion of the Basilica Ulpia, which soared above the ancient Italian city for over a millennia, helps bring to life the grandeur and magnificence of the original marble monument.

While most work on Rome's ubiquitous ruins points downwards, the rebuilding of the basilica's two-storey Corinthian colonnade has brought the focus up over 23 meters to be exact.

"If visitors can't sense the height of the monuments, they won't understand the meaning of the architecture," Claudio Parisi Presicce, Rome's top official for cultural heritage, told AFP on a tour of the site.

The Basilica Ulpia was the centerpiece of Trajan's Forum, the largest and last of the imperial forums, named after Marcus Ulpius Traianus, emperor from 98 to 117 A.D.

Inaugurated in the second century, it mostly collapsed during the Middle Ages, but was unearthed by excavations in the early 19th century and 1930s.

The current project, which began in 2021, identified three green marble columns that had been left for nearly 100 years "propped up in a corner with no connection with the floor plan," Parisi Presicce said.

Engineers returned them to their proper place atop four granite pillars that mark the outer perimeter of the basilica's first nave.

Between the two stories of columns, archaeologists and technicians have recreated the entablature with its decorative frieze depicting winged victories sacrificing bulls.

The project was funded with a 1.5-million-euro donation made in 2015 by Uzbekistan-born oligarch Alisher Usmanov.